Sarastro - Gabor Bretz
Tamino - Ed Lyon
Queen of the Night - Sabine Devieilhe
Pamina - Sophie Karthauser
Papageno - Georg Nigl
Papagena - Elena Galitskaya
Mononstatos - Elmar Gilbertsson
Three Dames - Tineke van Ingelgem, Angelique Noldus, Esther Kuiper
Two Priests / Guards - Guillaume Antoine, Yves Saelens
Three Boys - Sofia Royo Casoka, Tobias van Haeperen, Elfie Salauddin Cremer
La Monnaie Symphony Orchestra and Chorus
Antonello Manacorda (conductor)
Romeo Castellucci (director)
Castellucci's directorial approach to Magic Flute was radical as expected but it came to an unexpected conclusion. It was far from the very entertaining 'brought smile to the face' production by Barrie Kosky, nor the psycho thriller taken by David Hermann for the Flemish Opera, and certainly not as a children's introduction to opera.
Instead the binary theme, light and night, in the respective ideological camps were focused in this production. Under the effect of jet lag, at first I thought the man, who attempted at destroying the lone fluorescent lamp in darkness, an act of vandalism from the camp of the queen of the night. The first half was presented in an extraordinary setting of Baroque grotto, designed and built by Michael Hansmeyer, as Sarastro's Palace of Light. Singers were in their elaborate white lace costumes came to stage in a compose manner. Though the oppression to treat the moors like Mononstatos as servants eventually triggered rebellion that finished the first half in chaos.
Fluid and awe-inspiring choreography, yet the same time it felt very controlled and symmetrical. The perfection in harmony and beauty made one wondered by its purpose, or what the veil was hiding. There was no spoken dialogue but only the musical part retained. Up to this point, I could not wonder was the director trying to please the die hard traditionalist, who prefer visual comfort and their indulgence in literal understanding of the opera. Though that would be odd as it was ignoring the humorous aspect, and so far the staging had no emotion but only a surreal and hallucinated impression. Perhaps it was also demonstrating the righteous and virtue of Tamino turning away from the queen's revenge plan and admission to Sarastro's temple?
The answers were gradually unfolded in the second half in relation to motherhood, blindness and injury. Breastfeeding was shown and the produced milk was saved into the cylinder of the fluorescent lamp. It justified why the queen of the night as mother to Pamina wanted to protect her daughter from Sarastro, who only laid rules and boundaries than showing affection for her. Five blind women told the audience they embraced blindness as a condition not illness nor suffering. Hope and motivation could still be found and realised even in darkness. The bias associated to night/darkness were unjustified and wrongfully labelled. Light actually could also be harmful than a beacon of guide as the tale of the five men told their tales of suffering severely from associated accidents. The challenge in the temple were obstacles and only love brought Tamino and Pamina together and showed the way forward.
So the conclusion seems to be the queen wow the ideological argument because of her more human qualities by more able to express the rawness of her emotions, whereas Sarastro's logical and the upholding of moral dimension only brought a dull stability and even 'darkness' that undermined the human qualities as portrayed in the first half. The pretentious behaviours at the elaborate palace had no soul and could not compare to the workers that experienced life difficulties and obstacles. Yet I thought Papageno came with the best conclusion that the conflict between ideological camps nothing but a disillusioned dream. Only embraced both 'light' and 'night' then one would be rewarded in true happiness as in his union with Papagena.
Though setting Magic Flute as a conceptual framework it nonetheless undermined the entertaining and humour aspects. The uniform style deployed in the costume styles too left no room for a distinctive identification of the lead roles. They were nothing more that a soundtrack or music box playing tuneful catchy music. The sung text formed the basis of ideas to toy around but the narrative story telling was deprived from any attention. That might be why I did not find the singing particularly memorable.
Yet Georg Nigl carried more distinction in his character portrayal of Papageno and gave more dramatic colour to his singing. Sabine Devieilhe nailed the top notes without difficulty and met the vocal expectation as queen of the night. Both Ed Lyon and Sophie Karthauser gave a smooth and sweet singing impression. Gabor Bretz's timbre was not so dense for Sarastro and adopted a more swift tempo than grudging along in the stately arias. The Monnaie orchestra had again demonstrated improvement to their tone quality and gave more shape to the music. It gave a spirited playing under the direction of Antonello Manacorda.
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